Geeking Up Babyhttps://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com
A first-time geek dad's adventures in child-raisingWed, 13 Dec 2017 07:23:13 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/2a81c378df761e5c625e57c1dfdb7a38?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngGeeking Up Babyhttps://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com
Soloinghttps://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/soloing/
https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/soloing/#commentsMon, 04 Feb 2013 23:26:43 +0000http://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/?p=386]]>Saturday marked the first time that I took care of Morgan solo for more than about 30 minutes. She has been going through a very clingy phase lately where she was really only content with Jen as she started to get tired, so I was nervous, to say the least. When I say clingy, perhaps I should rephrase to say that she would cry in my arms until she fell asleep, then wake up just to see if I was Jen and start crying again. Needless to say, I wasn’t in the most confident of moods going into this several-hour solo mission.

Fortunately, she was as perfect as I could have ever asked. She fussed a little bit when she got tired, but calmed down quickly and went right to sleep. During her awake-and-not-tired times, we played and she laughed and smiled (just like always). I definitely feel much better going forward.

I’ll be honest: going into this, I felt like I was a level 30 about to solo a 12-man endgame raid. I was afraid Jen would get back from her outing and find us both curled up in the fetal position and crying.

I’m hoping this means that Morgan is coming out of her ultra-clingy phase, and not just that she didn’t see mommy anywhere and figured she may as well not fuss while daddy held her. Either way, it’s nice that my solo instance took a cue from a popular MMORPG and scaled its difficulty for me.

]]>https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/soloing/feed/1tchildreeEpic 80s Training Montagehttps://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/epic-80s-training-montage/
https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/epic-80s-training-montage/#respondThu, 31 Jan 2013 18:41:56 +0000http://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/?p=347]]>For a couple of weeks now, one of Morgan’s favorite things to do when she isn’t tired or hungry has been to stand (with mommy or daddy supporting her, obviously) in our laps. Her eyes get wide, her mouth gapes in a massive smile, and she usually starts laughing or babbling. Despite not having much balance yet, she actually does a good job of supporting her weight on her own legs, too, which surprised me at first. I guess I didn’t expect a 2-month old to have the strength OR the balance.

Recently, Morgan has progressed from just being held up by us, to trying to pull herself up either to fully standing or to sitting up by holding on to our hands, which she does phenomenally well, with the adorable end-position of having one of our fingers, her hand, or both stuck in her wide-open mouth (wide open because she smiles hugely while pulling herself up).

She likes playing with mommy while sitting in her Bumbo seat, and it is no exception to the pull-up rule. She can hold herself up pretty well with no help, but if we let her grab our hands, she pulls up to them and gapes open her mouth.

She isn’t crawling yet, but with her arms and legs doing such a good job supporting her weight, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time! As the title says, it feels like we’re living in Morgan’s training montage right now, watching her get a little bit better every time she tries something. It’s amazing, and it has me thinking I need to get a stair gate installed sooner rather than later!

]]>https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/epic-80s-training-montage/feed/0tchildreeImageDo You Speaka My Language?https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/do-you-speaka-my-language/
https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/do-you-speaka-my-language/#respondTue, 22 Jan 2013 23:35:08 +0000http://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/?p=344]]>In the past week or so, Morgan has started to babble, which excites Jen and me to no end. Saturday evening, I was singing to Morgan (like you do) when I started humming a random tune and pausing in between bars. At first she didn’t know what to make of it, although she thought it was rather funny, but eventually she figured out that I was giving her a chance to be a part of the song. Suddenly, almost every time I would pause in my humming, she would babble something back to me. We kept it up for a good 3 or 4 minutes and, young though she is, I think Morgan appreciated the thought that daddy wanted her to sing along.

Sunday morning, I woke up to the sound of Morgan babbling happily away and walked, bleary-eyed, into the living room to be told that Morgan had been carrying on a conversation with the Ninja Turtles on Jen’s water glass for the past ten minutes. By the time I woke up, she was mostly finished with her conversation, but I can only imagine the wisdom she felt Leo, Don, Raph, and Mikey needed to hear. It’s going to be a lot of fun to sit down with her and actually watch Ninja Turtles cartoons when she gets a little bit older.

We have found out, however, that Morgan is either camera shy or techno-curious, because all her babbling ceases within 5-10 seconds of noticing a camera. Given her daddy’s love of gadgetry, I’m going to go with techno-curious.

It is fresh and amazing every day to see her sense of joy and wonder at the experiences I take so much for granted. Something as simple as standing on my lap while I hold her up lights her face up unimaginably bright. Something as simple as not understanding the body mechanics involved in consistently rolling over gets her incredibly frustrated. So many things that are as mundane as peas on a plate to me are fascinating to her. In fact, I’m sure peas on a plate will be pretty fascinating the first time she gets to try them.

The sum of our experiences help make us who we are. It is almost obscene to imagine that something as simple as standing on daddy’s lap singing between the bars of a nameless tune has forever etched and shaped a small part of Morgan’s personality. The language of a child is the language of creation itself, chaotic and vital and beyond our comprehension. It truly is a thing of wonder.

]]>https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/do-you-speaka-my-language/feed/0tchildreeTo Sleep, Perchance to Dreamhttps://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/to-sleep-perchance-to-dream/
https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/to-sleep-perchance-to-dream/#respondWed, 16 Jan 2013 17:55:03 +0000http://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/?p=193]]>While it’s not true every time, lately Morgan has been very fussy at naptime, as I jokingly observed in my last post. It makes me so curious as to what might be going through her mind, and it does feel as if she gets mad at the cruel injustice of being denied new observations by her tired mind.

When she first starts to get tired and is just a bit fussy, nothing makes her happier than being held facing outward (back to my chest, one of my arms “buckling” her torso, one supporting her legs and butt). If she isn’t so tired that she’s just about to drop (and, thus, fighting the Jabberwocky for dear life), she stops fussing as soon as she’s facing out. That simple act of opening her visual horizons up is enough to negate the perceived problem of impending sleep.

It’s an amazing thing to see a child so desperately hungry to see, to learn, to do, which makes it even sadder to see adults so desperately hungry to keep to a routine and avoid new things. As a parent, I want to preserve that germ of intellectual and experiential curiosity for the rest of Morgan’s life. I want to nurture it and grow it, even knowing full well that she may well seek out experiences that I do not wish for her. That hunger for knowledge is more important than my own plans and desires for her life. Yes, as much and as long as possible, I will always be there to pick her up when an experience turns sour, and there are certainly some experiences I will protect her from, but I do not want my actions to ever indicate to her that seeking knowledge is wrong.

It is a great crime of our time that so many who have such a vast wealth of knowledge at their fingertips use it to do and know so little.

]]>https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/to-sleep-perchance-to-dream/feed/0tchildreeBeware the Jabberwockhttps://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/beware-the-jabberwock/
https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/beware-the-jabberwock/#respondWed, 09 Jan 2013 19:28:12 +0000http://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/?p=189]]>I have decided that, if Morgan has a Jabberwocky, it is naptime. Not bedtime, mind you; just naptime. I was walking her around last night on my shoulder after feeding her and she fell asleep, so I slowly sat down and leaned back, only to have her start fussing. I moved her from my shoulder to my lap and found that her eyes were closed, and I, like a terrible parent, sat there and watched for a good minute or two as she fussed and gave small cries with her eyes closed before getting her back on my shoulder and walking her around again. I couldn’t help it – it was so absurdly funny that it bordered on ludicrous while still being absolutely endearingly sweet.

Walking around put her back to sleep in pretty short order, this time for a good couple of hours, but it just made me stop and wonder what it is about naptime that can put so many kids into a bit of a cranky mood, and that’s when the thought of the Jabberwocky struck me.

That extra need for sleep when the world is so new and fascinating must seem like the greatest inconvenience imaginable. Sure, they’re happier after a nap than they are if they don’t get one, but their minds aren’t entirely logical yet, so the correlation between nap and better moods isn’t a concrete one for them yet. Instead, this lurking monster of sleep comes creeping up on them when they least expect it, taking them out of the world for an hour or two. At the very least, that has to be annoying, but to have something so far out far out of your control when you already have so little control has to be a somewhat fearful thing.

Walking around bobbing up and down, rocking back and forth can help distract from that creeping sleepiness, which Jen and I are all too happy to do, but it seems like once Morgan is aware of the Jabberwocky’s presence, only sleep can make her forget it. At least this Jabberwocky is really good, because she always comes back happy as a clam!

Fresh off a trip to see the Jabberwocky

]]>https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/beware-the-jabberwock/feed/0tchildreeFresh off a trip to see the JabberwockyAll Smileshttps://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/all-smiles/
https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/all-smiles/#respondTue, 08 Jan 2013 23:45:29 +0000http://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/?p=145]]>There is something absolutely magical about waking Morgan up. It may change as time goes on, but I have never seen a baby who is happier to be woken up. Her eyes come open and she immediately starts smiling, which is, if possible, even cuter if she somehow manages to keep her pacifier in all night, because her eyes light up in a smile while her gums grip the pacifier like Popeye’s pipe.

Sure, if it’s time to eat, those smiles can turn into frowns and fussiness pretty quickly, but even if she’s slept all night, she always has at least one smile for mommy and/or daddy when she first wakes up, as if she knows that we would never let her go hungry, so even if her tummy is rumbly, she wants us to know how much she loves us before she tells us that she’s hungry. There is nothing in the world like those smiles.

I never new just how much my heart could melt until I saw her smile at me. Nothing compares to the abject joy her face expresses. That’s all I’ve got for you today, just a little bit of sappiness.

]]>https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/all-smiles/feed/0tchildreeImageSocket Bonuses and Babieshttps://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/socket-bonuses-and-babies/
https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/socket-bonuses-and-babies/#respondMon, 07 Jan 2013 19:21:17 +0000http://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/?p=126]]>MMORPG gamers (and lovers of Diablo-style games) are, I’m sure, familiar with sockettable items and the interesting little juggling match that comes with figuring out where a generic socket item is going to give the best benefit. Should you buff damage output or a specific damage type, or should you buff armor, specific avoidances, or another stat entirely? Even simple games like Torchlight make sure that your sockettable items give you at least two options, making you think long and hard about where they’re going to go.

I’ve already lost most of you, haven’t I? The point is, RPGs like to give you items that provide very different benefits depending on where you use them. So how on earth does that relate to babies?

As I’m slowly learning, there are different bonuses for different ways of holding Morgan. Laying on the lap is good for play and feeding; cradled in my arms gives me a +10 fussiness debuff; holding her with her butt in one hand and her head in the other hand gives me a bonus against gassy fussiness and a playtime buff; and holding her over my shoulder while patting her back and walking around gives a huge buff to calming and a moderate buff to sleepy baby. It’s all about knowing where to “socket” her.

If you’re wondering, Jen has general socket bonuses to calming and sleep across the board – no debuffs for cradling when mommy does it, and plenty of play and calming buffs for any position where she can see Morgan’s eyes.

It makes sense that mommy’s socket bonuses are better…after all, she had to undertake a much harder quest than dad did.

Thank goodness that babies, unlike sockettable items, can be resocketted at will until an agreeable location is found, eh?

]]>https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/socket-bonuses-and-babies/feed/0tchildreeA Peek Behind The Editorial Curtainhttps://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/a-peek-behind-the-editorial-curtain/
https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/a-peek-behind-the-editorial-curtain/#respondThu, 03 Jan 2013 15:34:28 +0000http://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/?p=122]]>In my last blog post I made a cheap joke about Oxytocin, meaning to convey that the sense of bliss it imparts was part of what helped even the most anti-child women become loving mothers, but my most important reader pointed out to me that the cheap joke’s tone came across far more serious than I had intended, and rather than jokingly implying that the sense of euphoria caused by the release of Oxytocin helps bad moms become good moms, it more closely implied that all mothers and babies get high off each other and that was the only reason they had a good bond. Far from being a joke, what I appeared to be saying was, quite understandably, seriously offensive. More importantly, it was offensive when I had no intention of it being offensive.

I have occasionally written inflammatory statements in the past (not yet on this blog), but the important thing about any inflammatory statement I write is that I intend to be offensive when I write it. I have even occasionally told offensive and off-color jokes, but, again, the important thing is that I expect the possibility of my listener either laughing or being offended. If I tell a (lame) joke that I consider to be largely harmless and find out that, in actuality, it could be taken as broadly denigrating the bond every single mother shares with her children, well, that’s a problem.

As a result, I changed the wording of the offending paragraph last night. I realize that this is just a blog, and I realize that I may never have a wide readership, but I am still a writer, and I still want to strive for excellence in my writing. The editorial process is an important part of the writing process, and, just as I would want to go back and remove typos or factual errors pointed out to me, I want to remove or rework statements that just don’t work in their present form.

I doubt I will generally point out edits that I make, as (I hope) they will usually only consist of minor corrections and formatting adjustments, but this was a big enough change that I wanted to draw attention to it and say mea culpa. If you read yesterday’s post before last night’s edit and found it to be offensive, I want to apologize for my careless wording. I conveyed a message that I absolutely did not intend to say, and I am truly sorry for any and all offense I caused.

Now, you know what? I know some parents who should have had this thought before having kids. At the same time, though, I can honestly say that I don’t know very many parents I would consider to be terrible, and part of that is because having kids changes you in some subtle (and some not-so-subtle) ways.

Of course we all know that, from an evolutionary standpoint, the release of oxytocin helps to cement the powerful relationship between mother and child, but that sense of euphoria doesn’t explain the way mothers seem to instinctively know what to do with their own child(ren), even when the mere thought of holding a friend’s child sends child-fearing women running for Depends.

Let me give just one example: Jen and I own two cats. We’ve owned at least one cat constantly since shortly after we got married. Both of our cats are capable of delivering toxic stenches bordering on the biohazardous. In that time, we have never gotten used to that stench, and will frequently move to get away from the stench of their emissions and deposits. Before Morgan was born, my experience with diapers consisted of 1: Standing outside of nurseries holding my nose at the stench while friends changed their younger siblings’ diapers, and 2: Almost passing out from the stench of changing my nephew’s diaper when I had to watch him for a few hours one day and having that stench seared indelibly upon my olfactory memory. I don’t remember anything about changing that diaper beyond the horrifying stench.

Morgan has had some pretty stinky poops in the past 6-1/2 weeks, but you know what I remember about changing her dirty diapers? How hilarious it is when I open her up too soon and she’s still pooping, or how shocking it is that someone so small can produce so much poop. As soon as a stinky diaper is changed, the stench is gone from my memory beyond a vague footnote that, “Oh yeah, that didn’t smell very good.” I remember the taffy-like consistency of Morgan’s first Meconium-infused bowel movements far better than I remember the odor of the huge poop she had last night.

I don’t have the excuse of a bliss-inducing hormone addling my senses so much that disgusting poop no longer disgusts me, but the fact remains that 6-1/2 weeks of having a baby has addled my senses in a way that 7 years of cat ownership could not, which makes it clear to me that there is more than a hormonal euphoria forging the bond of love between parents and children. And yes, the cats are still capable of dropping bombs of horrific proportions that leave me looking out the window for UN inspectors investigating violations of the Geneva Conventions.

I can’t say that I ever looked at it this way, but I have heard some non-parents talk about having a baby in the same way they talk about owning a pet. On a purely cognitive level, I understand some of the parallels, but I also understand that this kind of statement comes from the same place as that “I’m too selfish” excuse: inconceivably vast ignorance. Owning a pet is something you do for companionship. Having a child is not something you do for companionship. Even the worst pet does not have the potential to fill you with joy or break your heart like a child can.

Ultimately, having a child is something that you do when you have matured to the point that you no longer want to be the main character in your own story. Plenty of people have children before they reach that point, but it is the mark of the greatest parents I know that they are no longer the protagonists of the story of their life, but rather the key supporting cast in the story of their children’s lives. You can still live a rich, fulfilling, and important life as a supporting character, but you can never look at yourself as the most important character again for as long as your child is in the picture.

Ultimately, this is what someone who thinks they are too selfish for a child truly means. As Cracked points out, that excuse itself is insane. After all, if you’re too selfish for a child, what makes you not too selfish to have friends? The truth is, these people aren’t selfish, they’re simply unwilling to cease being a protagonist, because they realize that, in actuality, a child is nothing like a pet. You don’t have a child to support your own needs and desires (certain celebrities notwithstanding), you have a child to support their needs and desires and to give everything that you have to give to the process of creating another beautiful human being for this crazy world. You have a child because, no matter what they ask of you, it’s never too much, because you love them with every atom of your being.

It isn’t selfish to be unwilling to do that, and if you feel like you can’t do that, you absolutely should not try. There is nothing wrong with being unwilling to have a child. Absolutely nothing. If you need to spend the rest of your life as the main character in your story, then do so and be happy! But if you one day wake up and realize that nothing would give you greater joy than seeing someone else skyrocket to greater success than you ever could have had, well, you know what to do. Evolution will handle the rest.

]]>https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/changing-the-worldbuilding/feed/0tchildreeAbsolute BlissWaking Up Your Primal Instinctshttps://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/waking-up-your-primal-instincts/
https://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/waking-up-your-primal-instincts/#respondMon, 31 Dec 2012 15:19:50 +0000http://geekingupbaby.wordpress.com/?p=46]]>I’m a bit of a heavy sleeper. When Hurricane Opal whipped through North Georgia in 1995, felling numerous trees on our property and leaving us penned in for a few days as a result, I woke up late that morning having no idea what had happened until my mother told me. I’ve slept through a mild earthquake (which is still more major than Georgia is supposed to get), a few tornadoes, and countless intense thunder storms. I’ve only slept through an alarm a couple of times in my life, but I also set third and fourth redundant alarms to make sure of this.

I was terrified that I would find myself watching Morgan by myself at some point and sleep through her crying – especially since I have tended to sleep through any time she wakes Jen up for a feeding. This morning, I was given one of the greatest reliefs of my young life as a parent. Jen had gotten up to use the restroom, and I assume that either Morgan was waking up anyway or the jostling must have woken her (it was not long before I normally get up for work). Morgan made a sound and I woke up out of a dead sleep to check on her. I was able to get her up and ready for Jen to feed her with no trouble.

It’s such a minor thing, but knowing just how much I am capable of sleeping through, it is a huge relief to know that evolution did not fail me. Of course we know that there are certain behaviors that have selected over the course of our evolution, and that awareness of one’s children is among the simplest of our animal instincts to have been selected (since, after all, being unaware would typically lead to fewer surviving offspring), but until you’ve had that awareness confirmed, there are always niggling doubts. It is a huge load off my shoulders to have this doubt removed!